User Profile for JL Schmidt (JL_Smith)

Bio: I've spent over 10 ten years in digital. From Hong Kong to the Baja, Toronto to Vancouver.

Project management is my trade and specialty, but I’ve been most things on all teams (have coded html but never worked on a psd, no designer would let me near one). I've led project teams, and won a Cannes Cyber Lion for NikeID doing so, was the head of a PM department and our first CM Toronto.

I have a history degree, making me naturally curious about the philosophy of and seeming aversion to lessons. I’ve come to realize now, it’s my life’s work. During a 5 year hiatus from Critical Mass I began a self-directed study of Knowledge Management. When I began, I had no idea I should be calling it KM. My aim was to gain some insight into the seemingly stubborn nature of human beings -- specifically, our inability to share important information and how companies prevent themselves from preserving their smarts. I thought: are we all too lazy to care about legacy, getting smarter and being able to pass knowledge on so we actually evolve? Armed with a plethora of research and guidance from some of the greats (Hubert St. Onge, Debra Amidon, & many others), I was ready to try to answer (again) some of the questions that have been asked one billion times before.

After one year back at CM, I have some answers, and revelations about sparking a KM sub-culture at my company. In a world driven by the billable hour making time for knowledge preservation and innovation is challenging. There’s something to be said about having the back story on a young, energetic teenaged culture. Before you go trying to shove a bunch of “tried and true” KM philosophies on it, you’d better get a little creative with what you thought were the possibilities…

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